Short Money
Debate between Tom Pursglove and John Penrose(8 years, 8 months ago)
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John Penrose
As I mentioned, the amount of Short money has gone up by 50% since 2010, so Opposition parties have a great deal more money with which to do their job than they did before. I refer the hon. Gentleman back to the comment made when we last considered this issue, about 10 days ago, by the hon. Member for Clacton, who pointed out that the costs of research and many other political functions are now potentially lower. Given what is being asked of many Departments and local authorities, it is certainly reasonable to ask people to work more efficiently in future.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
I think the public will be astonished that full accounts do not have to be published in this age of transparency. How is the Minister going to put that right?
John Penrose
I devoutly hope that the result of this process will be an increase in transparency. We already have improved transparency in pretty much every other area of taxpayer-funded spending, and we already have transparency that is far better than that for Short money on policy development grants—a very similar kind of grant. It would therefore be increasingly out of step with the modern world for us to assume that Short money should somehow be magically exempt.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tom Pursglove and John Penrose(9 years, 4 months ago)
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John Penrose
As we heard earlier, almost £10 million has been spent on registration activities and drives since the start of this year, and we have made it a great deal more convenient and easier to register through individual electoral registration. We are looking at the report and recommendations produced by the Electoral Commission. In due course, when we respond to them, I am sure that we will have more to say.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
What recent assessment has the Minister made of the number of ineligible electors on registers—namely, EU citizens who find themselves registered for parliamentary elections?
John Penrose
One of the benefits of individual electoral registration is that it has a built-in check for validity, which dramatically improves the quality of registers as a result. As more and more of the roll is completed using individual electoral registration, we expect it to have a beneficial effect in weeding out people who are incorrectly registered in the way that my hon. Friend describes.